by Kai Meyer
Thanassis spoke up again. “Now that that’s cleared up, I suggest that we—”
“Who is Apollonio?” asked Rosa.
“What?”
“You’re the first person I’ve met who knows anything about TABULA. That’s why I’m asking you: Who is Apollonio?”
Bewildered, Thanassis looked from her to Danai, then back to Rosa. “I don’t know anyone by that name. TABULA has changed during the last couple of decades. We learn less and less information about it.”
Danai came to his aid. “We’re more or less sure that Sigismondis stopped playing a leading part some time ago. He must be over eighty now. The structure of leadership in the organization has changed, and we think Sigismondis fell victim to a coup in its ranks. If there is an Apollonio in TABULA, he could be anyone, from a mere assistant to Sigismondis’s successor.”
“Don’t try telling me you know where TABULA has its secret labs, but you don’t know any names. That’s nonsense!”
“Of course we know names, but by no means all of them.”
“Apollonio did deals on behalf of my grandmother, selling the furs. He was probably the supplier who sold Tano Carnevare the serum. He must be some kind of middleman, the link between TABULA and the Arcadians.”
“There are several of those.” Thanassis waved the subject away. “We picked up two or three of them, years ago. But they’re always quickly replaced.”
“What happened to those you picked up?”
“We killed them,” replied Danai, dispassionately. “What else?”
“We’re fighting a war,” said Thanassis. “You ought to have grasped that by now. And neither of the two sides is particularly considerate of the other.”
“Three,” remarked Alessandro.
“Hmm?”
“There are three sides. You, the Arcadians, and TABULA.”
Rosa wondered for a moment whether to say more about her father. But she was a prisoner on board the Stabat Mater, whatever Thanassis claimed, and she felt no need to tell him and his daughter such intimate details. The memory of her rape lay deep inside her like a sealed package. She wasn’t going to take it out again and open it up before everyone’s eyes.
Yet the question of why Apollonio had tried crossing a Lamia with one of the Panthera outside a laboratory tormented her. She tried with all her might to look at it soberly, with almost medical detachment. But the pain came back at once, the humiliation, the feeling of being helpless under Tano Carnevare’s naked body, lying there drugged, with her eyes open and wide awake.
She realized only a moment later that Thanassis had been going on with his account for some time, and had to force herself to listen to him.
“. . . no doubt at all that the Hungry Man will make himself leader of all the Arcadians again,” he was saying. “There have always been those in the dynasties who look back at the past. Conservatives, if you like. They don’t want progress; for them, it’s a synonym for the game of hide-and-seek that they hate playing in front of the world. They brought all their influence to bear on the government in Rome to get him freed. Now he’s back in order to rise—symbolically—to the throne of Arcadia again.”
“Which you intend to prevent how?” asked Rosa.
“We have informers inside the dynasties. Spies. So we know that the Hungry Man is going to give a sign. He plans to shore up his bid for power by means of a ritual, and he is looking back at tradition in order to divert attention from his weaknesses. Exactly as the rulers of ancient Rome did, or the Fascists in Europe in the twentieth century. He is making use of the same tasteless methods as all other dictators. As capo dei capi, he learned how insecure subjects want to be ruled. Furthermore, he had influential supporters and followers, and he has to live up to their expectations. He intends the ritual of his return to burn itself into the memory of one and all.”
Rosa moved very close to Alessandro by the parapet, until their arms were touching. She leaned against the cool ship’s rail. A sea breeze behind her blew through her hair, swirling it over her shoulders.
“He’s not going to make the same mistake Lycaon once did,” said Thanassis. “Instead of making the most powerful dynasties his enemies, thus risking another coup, he’s including them in his plans. He wants the Lamias and the Panthera on his side from the start, and the way it looks, he’s already achieved that. The murder plot against the judge, the hunt for you two, they’re all part of the plan.”
“I spoke to him in prison,” said Rosa. “He wanted Alessandro and me to go over to him.”
“When was this?”
“A few weeks ago?”
“And you refused?”
“He’d set hit men on Alessandro. He thought the Carnevares were responsible for the thirty years he spent behind bars. I had to promise him something to get him to go back on his order to kill Alessandro. I had to promise that someday I would do him a favor.”
Thanassis and his daughter exchanged a glance. “Did he say what kind of favor?”
Rosa shook her head. “He didn’t keep his side of the bargain anyway, or the Harpies wouldn’t have attacked us. So I owe him nothing now.”
“The Harpies were meant to catch us, not kill us,” said Alessandro. “Only after we . . . after I killed Saffira and Aliza did the Malandras strike back. The attack in the railroad tunnel must have been entirely their own affair.”
“I think so, too,” said Thanassis. “The Hungry Man has been making use of the dissatisfaction between the Alcantaras and Carnevares and brought them over to his side, anyone who isn’t happy to take orders from a couple of teenagers any longer.” He said that with a smug smile. “And now I’m sure you want to know what he is planning for you two.”
“Dramatic pauses for effect don’t exactly enlighten us,” said Rosa.
Thanassis laughed, a noisy rattle of laughter, almost choked, and earned a reproving glance from his nurse. “You’re right, forgive me,” he said hoarsely to Rosa. “The Hungry Man wants power over the dynasties, and to get it he needs the support of all the important clans, more particularly the Lamias and Panthera. He wants to unite the rivals of the past, and prevent another act of betrayal. With that in mind, he is trying to reactivate the ancient alliance made when the dynasties signed the peace treaty after the civil war. He wants a new concordat under his control, as a symbol of the return of old Arcadia.”
“The ceremony at the mausoleum of Lycaon,” said Alessandro, putting into words what Rosa had suspected herself for some time. “He plans to perform it again.”
Thanassis nodded thoughtfully. “They will marry you to each other. And then they will force you, Rosa, to kill Alessandro—and directly after that to kill yourself. Your sacrifice is to seal the new concordat in blood.”
BAIT
IN HER MIND’S EYE, Rosa saw a wedding cake of several tiers, a dream of a cake filled with whipped cream and buttercream. On it stood two figures dressed in black and white. The bride was holding a kitchen knife and hysterically stabbing the bridegroom with it.
If you reduced the Hungry Man’s plan to its essentials, there was something absurdly comic about it.
However, she was alone in seeing it that way. Even Danai looked shocked when Rosa abruptly burst out laughing. She laughed so hard that she could hardly catch her breath. She couldn’t restrain herself, particularly when she thought about how she hated buttercream and how whipped cream gave her a rash.
Alessandro kept his eye on her, said nothing, and waited until she had calmed down. He knew her so well. She reached up and kissed him. His lips tasted salty.
“Well,” said Evangelos Thanassis, “that was an interesting assessment of the situation.”
“But how crazy can you get?” exclaimed Rosa. “Is that the bastard’s idea of leading the Sicilian Mafia?”
“The Mafia is obsessed with blood rites,” replied the old man. “If anyone can be impressed by such things, it’s Cosa Nostra.”
“But the thought of anyone taking it seriously . . . It
’s total garbage!”
“You’d better take it seriously,” remarked Danai. “After all, you’re going to play the leading lady.”
Alessandro put an arm around her. “Assuming that he can get his hands on her. And me. Which is not going to happen.”
“And here we come to a difficult point.” Thanassis signed to his nurse, who at once did something to one of his infusion bags. “Lycaon’s tomb,” he said, as he visibly relaxed. “We don’t know where it is.”
“And what, exactly, is the problem with that?” asked Alessandro.
“I thought you’d understood. He wants to repeat a ceremony thousands of years old as precisely as possible. He wants to revive the ritual. It’s meant to be the completion of a cycle that would then begin again from that point. He’s not interested in supernatural hocus-pocus or silly prophesies. The whole thing is a show! The effect of a conjuring trick is greatly increased by the spectacular element of its staging. A theatrical magician could simply make a rabbit disappear out of a hat, but instead—”
“He’ll make the Eiffel Tower disappear,” said Rosa. “Or the Statue of Liberty.”
Thanassis nodded. “That’s why the Hungry Man can’t conduct the ritual in some conference room or palazzo. If he really wants to impress the dynasties—and that is the only point of it—he has to conjure up the spirit of the past, consistent in every detail. It must be at the same place where the first concordat was sealed.”
“We think,” Danai added, “that he already knows where that place is. He’s found the site of the mausoleum of Lycaon.”
“If Sicily really is the former Arcadia,” said Alessandro, “then his tomb must be somewhere on the island, right?”
“Yes,” agreed Danai. “From all the information we’ve been able to gather, preparations for the ceremony are now in full swing. All the important representatives of the dynasties will learn where they are expected to go just before it begins. Nowhere in Sicily is more than a few hours’ journey from any other point. The Hungry Man has issued instructions to them all to be at the ready. The time will soon come. Now he needs only the two most important guests of all.”
Suspiciously, Rosa bent her head. “Why are you telling us all this?”
“I am going to eliminate the Hungry Man and all those associated with him.” Thanassis sounded as objective as if he were planning the hostile takeover of a rival firm. “As soon as they assemble to usher in the new era, we shall strike.”
“Assuming you find out the location of the mausoleum in time,” said Rosa.
“And this is where you two come in.”
“Forget it.”
“Only the capi of the clans and their closest confidants will be present at the ceremony. None of our informants are among them. We’ve tried to find substitutes, but there aren’t any. No one willing to work with us will be there.”
“That’s your bad luck,” said Alessandro.
“We need you,” said Thanassis. “We could outfit you with radar tracking devices. Then you’d lead us straight to them, to the entire leadership of the dynasties. An opportunity like this won’t come our way—”
The cold heart of the snake began pulsating inside Rosa, but she suppressed it for the moment. “You want to hand us over? That’s why you told us all this? So that we’d act as bait for you?”
Alessandro moved away from the ship’s rail and took a step toward Thanassis. “This is your private crusade against Sigismondis and the Hungry Man. You want to annihilate all the Arcadians? Go ahead. But don’t expect us to help you.”
“I don’t want to eradicate them all, only destroy their structures of command. More Arcadians live in Sicily than anywhere else in the world. If the clan structure disintegrates, if they are dispersed all over the world again, TABULA will find it much harder to lay hands on victims for more experiments.”
“Don’t pretend with us,” retorted Rosa. “You don’t want to weaken TABULA, you want to destroy it. And as long as there are Arcadians left, Sigismondis or his successors won’t rest.”
Thanassis dismissed that. “But it’s not just that they abduct Arcadians. The dynasties themselves are TABULA’s major customers. No one else needs the serum. TABULA lives on the profits from its sales, earning vast sums, particularly in Sicily. The Russian Mafia, for instance, hasn’t been infiltrated nearly as much by Arcadians as Cosa Nostra. The Mediterranean and its coasts have been the homeland of the dynasties since time immemorial; this is where their power center lies. And if we succeed in inflicting a heavy blow on them here, we could defeat TABULA.”
“I’m not going to stand by and watch while you hand Rosa over to the Hungry Man.” Strands of the panther’s black fur were now running through Alessandro’s hair.
“Neither of us will go there,” said Rosa. “It would be suicide, as you very well know. Even if you succeeded in eliminating the Hungry Man and a few of the others, your plan could work only if you were going to strike down all the Arcadians. But as long as only the capi turn up for the ceremony, that’s just hogwash.”
Dark fur was now covering the backs of Alessandro’s hands. “What’s your idea, Thanassis? A kind of monument to your ambition? A final major operation, never mind its prospects of success?”
A little while ago, Danai had turned her face into the wind, looking strangely preoccupied. Now, however, she spun around. “It’s a chance! The best we’ve ever had. If we can face the Hungry Man, maybe everything else will resolve itself.”
“He’s been in prison for thirty years,” Rosa snapped back at her. “Thirty years! And in all that time, did the earth open and swallow up the clans? Did TABULA disappear? They all gained even more power and influence than before.”
“He’s not the only one we’re going to kill,” said Thanassis. “We’ll send all the heads of the clans with him. The men and women who didn’t accept you. And you want to protect them?”
Alessandro shook his head. “We want to protect ourselves, that’s all. We’re not interested in the others anymore.”
Rosa tried to read his thoughts in his eyes. Was he saying good-bye to his inheritance, to the idea of remaining capo of the Carnevares in spite of everything?
“It won’t work without your help,” said Thanassis. “But we can’t force you.”
Of course not. The hybrids could hand them over to the dynasties, but that would do them no good unless Rosa and Alessandro were secretly fitted with radar trackers. And that was impossible without their consent; they would have been able to give the Hungry Man advance warning of Thanassis’s plans. At the same time, there was no means of blackmail that the Greek could exert to force them to cooperate with him. Threatening one of them and handing over only the other wouldn’t be enough. The dynasties needed them both.
“How did the Hungry Man find the shrine?” asked Rosa, stalling for time.
“There was someone who did research on it for him many years ago,” said Thanassis. “A journalist who had got on the tail of the Arcadian dynasties.”
“Leonardo Mori.”
“You know about him?”
Rosa nodded.
“Mori was originally researching material for a book,” said the old man. “We assume that he went too far. Usually a snoop like him would simply have been eliminated, like dozens of other journalists who took too keen an interest in the affairs of the Mafia. But it must have been clear to the Hungry Man that Mori had accumulated a far more extensive knowledge of his subject than anyone else before him. The dynasties stayed underground for thousands of years, and hardly anyone tried to reconstruct their history. Yet there must have been written evidence, in archives and museums in Greece, Italy, maybe elsewhere as well. Everything Arcadian has always been ascribed to ancient Greece, and Mori may have been the first who succeeded in interpreting the signs correctly. He was on the right track, and the Hungry Man decided to use Mori’s knowledge. Instead of killing him, he offered him his support—in exchange for everything that Mori found out.”
&n
bsp; “Then my father didn’t have Mori murdered just because he knew too much,” said Alessandro, “but also to weaken the Hungry Man?”
Rosa agreed with him. “Cesare and your father knew that the Hungry Man blamed them for his arrest. They must have been terrified that he might come back to Sicily.”
“Interesting,” said Thanassis thoughtfully. “Then the Carnevares were responsible for the death of Mori? That makes sense. Mori found the site of Lycaon’s tomb for the Hungry Man. He must have had accounts of it. After his murder, a number of crates full of papers were confiscated from his hotel room and his apartment. However, that trail is lost among the evidence stored by the police. None of it seems to exist any longer; we’ve tried all the leverage we could exert, and nothing ever came of it.”
“Then either they’re in the possession of the Hungry Man today,” said Rosa, “or else—”
“Or else we have them,” murmured Alessandro. “It’s possible that Cesare appropriated the evidence to prevent them from falling into the Hungry Man’s hands.”
Thanassis said, a quiver in his voice, “Then maybe there’s another way to locate the tomb. If we knew where Mori’s archives are, and we could evaluate them—”
His daughter interrupted him. “Even if we find them, it would take us days to get even a rough idea of what’s there. You don’t leaf through several crates full of papers in a couple of minutes.”
“Without us, the Hungry Man can’t throw his party,” said Rosa. “As long as we’re here, there’s no time limit for us, either.”
Alessandro’s glance told her that he wasn’t happy with what she was trying to do. He probably would have rather brought the discussion to an end and refused to go further into the plans that Thanassis had made. And until two minutes ago, Rosa had seen things exactly the same way.
Now, however, she told Thanassis, “I think I know where the Carnevares hid Mori’s documents.”
Alessandro stared at her, in concern rather than surprise. Danai and the old man were waiting impatiently for her to go on.
Rosa kept perfectly calm. The snake was with her, and for the first time she felt that its proximity was reassuring. Its cold-blooded nature came back, the sense of being able to control a situation. Ultimately, it was like stealing things—except that she wasn’t stealing wallets from other people now, she was stealing their attention.
